“What do you know about it?” cried Harry.
She laughed again, which was exasperating. Young men take nothing more amiss than an impertinent woman’s doubts as to the brilliancy of the entertainment in those haunts which are sacred to their own special enjoyment. He knew very well at bottom that the “Red Lion” was as dull as ditchwater; but nothing would have made him confess it; where else, he said to himself, had he to go?
“You had better mind your own concerns,” he said, “I’ll get my amusement my own way. Has there been a row that mother’s not here? I don’t mean to say that I am not obliged to you, Joan, for getting out of bed to let me in. By Jove, if I had been shut out I know what I’d have done! Was there a great row?”
“What would you have done?” said Joan, still half laughing; then she started and with a little cry, said, “What’s that?”
“What’s what? I’ll tell you this, I should never have crossed the door again in daylight, be sure of that, that was shut to me in the night.”
Before he had finished this speech, Joan clutched him by the arm.
“Don’t you hear something?” she said, “come in, come in, don’t lose a minute. What if he should lock the kitchen door? Harry, promise me you’ll not stop to say a word, but run up to your bed.”
She was hurrying while she spoke, through the series of outbuildings, dragging him with her, breathless, and speaking in gasps. But as they went on from one to another there could be no longer any doubt as to what had happened. The kitchen door, which opened from these offices, was shut with a loud jar, and the key turned.
“I dunno’ who’s out and about at this hour of the night,” Joscelyn was heard within, “but whoever it is they’ll stay there: some o’ the women out like the cats, dash them, or may be a good-for-nothing lad. I’ll teach them what it is to roam the country o’ nights. You’ll stay there whoever you are.”
Joan lost all her self-command in the emergency. She dropped Harry’s hand and threw herself against the door.